The Men Who Built America

As the nation attempts to rebuild following the destruction of the Civil War, Cornelius Vanderbilt is the first to see the need for unity to regain America s stature in the world.

Kerosene is lighting America after dark in unprecedented ways. The demand for oil is sky high and Vanderbilt knows that oil can fill his trains.

Andrew Carnegie immigrates to the United States with his parents and starts working at age 12. He finds a patron in railroad executive Tom Scott who teaches him about the business.

Carnegie hires a hatchet man, Henry Frick, to help him achieve his goal of besting Rockefellar. The partnership seems promising, but Carnegie does not know that Frick is running his factories far beyond capacity.

While Carnegie and Rockefeller continue to battle, JP Morgan arrives on the scene and establishes a bank in New York City that has one goal: to further the technological advancements of America.

With an investment from Morgan, the Edison Electric Company is created and begins wiring homes in New York. A rival, Nikola Tesla, soon emerges with a different technology for electric light.

Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan have gone unmonitored for decades, but American politicians are about to change that.

A young engineer named Henry Ford devises the plan for a gas-powered car. McKinley is assassinated and his VP Theodore Roosevelt takes office and quickly passes a series of regulations increasing oversight of American business.